Brisket with no water in pan?


 
A

Andrew Marburger

New member
I am going to cook a brisket Saturday night into Sunday and wanted to run an idea past you guys.

The last couple of times I have done brisket, I have ended up with a soggy bark due to the over-moisturized environment of the WSM with water in the pan.

Have any of you smoked a brisket with a dry pan? How did it work out? Do I need to be worried about the meat drying out?

If not, what can I do to help keep the crust crispy?
 
Andrew, I'm a fan of the faster cooked and foiled briskets that Tim mentioned. However, good bark is certainly not what I get cooking that way.

You might try cooking with a dry foiled pan, but at the stall and after bark formation, wrap the brisket up in butcher paper instead of foil. I hear it's a fantastic method and it's on my to-do list. The only other things I can think of is to cook a little faster, like around 250 instead of 225*. Also, try trimming your brisket some if you haven't tried that yet.

If you have no interest in wrapping though, I'd simply let the pan get fairly low and raise the temps toward the end of the cook. Works great with ribs and butts, as well.
 
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The water from the pan doesn't affect the moisture of the meat, you can boil a chunk of beef and still dry out the inside of it. Kind of like dry pot roast .If you want to firm up the bark bump up the temps for the last 1/2 hour.
 
Andrew Marburger said:
I am going to cook a brisket Saturday night into Sunday and wanted to run an idea past you guys.

The last couple of times I have done brisket, I have ended up with a soggy bark due to the over-moisturized environment of the WSM with water in the pan.

Have any of you smoked a brisket with a dry pan? How did it work out? Do I need to be worried about the meat drying out?

If not, what can I do to help keep the crust crispy?
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Andrew: I may be in the minority here, but just last week I did a low-and-slow brisket and it had terrific bark. I started at midnight and tried to keep the WSM temps between 225* and 250*. At about the six hour mark, the bark was starting to form nicely, so about every 20-30 minutes I'd give it a misting of just plain water from a spray bottle. I did that for about two hours or so, and at that point the bark was excellent, and I foiled. I know that this sounds counter-intuitive, but I've been taught that misting helps bark formation. In the three briskets I've done thus far, each has had really nice bark.

As to the water/no water debate, my first brisket was done with a full pan of water. It came out OK, but not terrific. It had good bark. I ended up making crock-pot chili out of it. My second brisket was done with a dry pan. I found that the temperatures were more difficult to control, and that even the slightest vent adjustment yielded significant temperature changes. Nonetheless, the brisket was better than the one done with the pan full. My third brisket (an overnight cook), was done with a dry pan and a foil-wrapped 12" clay saucer in the bowl. It came out really nicely. I found that the temperatures were easier to control, and there was less fluctuation when small vent adjustments were made. So, for now, I'm in the "dry bowl with a clay saucer" camp when it comes to brisket.

HTH.

Scott
 
So, for now, I'm in the "dry bowl with a clay saucer" camp when it comes to brisket.
Likewise. I do butt and brisket low n slow, waterpan, no water. Moistness of the meat is generally from not overcooking, not the moist cooking environment. Water in the pan is mostly just a temp stabilizer and doesn't really add much humidity to the cooking process.
 
Thanks for the replies fella's.

I ended up putting water in the pan. Sadly, I overcooked the brisket which, predictably, caused a level of dryness. The good news is I only slightly overcooked it so it was extraordinarily tender and not completely dried out. Interestingly, this is my first brisket that I didn't get a very good smoke ring on. I mean, it was present, just not as pronounced as in the past. Would cooking too long cause this?

I'm going to go with a clay saucer next time as well.

Does anybody not foil their briskets? I always did previously, then I didn't foil this most recent one. I didn't really notice a substantive difference.
 
If you do a high heat brisket, minimize the time spent with the lid off of the WSM. I had a pretty respectable grease fire (think jet afterburner) from the grease in my empty water pan the last time I did a HH brisket. Good thing the hair on your hand grows back quickly :D
 
Andrew Marburger said:
Does anybody not foil their briskets? I always did previously, then I didn't foil this most recent one. I didn't really notice a substantive difference.
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Andrew,

Were your cook times shorter when you used foil method ? In theory, foiling stops the evaporation of meat's surface moisture (water) to the cooking environment which tends to have a cooling effect on the meat and prolongs the stalls. I have foiled since day one. 14-16 packers have been consistently finishing in approx 9 hrs. In theory they should have taken 14-24 hours (1-1 1/2 hrs/pound) if un-foiled.
 
Yeah, I've had some good briskets come off my 18.5 without foiling. Also have had them dry by the time they were tender, too.

As I mentioned earlier, if I wasn't going to foil, I'd try the butcher paper. I'll be buying some next time I'm at SAMs or Restaurant depot.

I had to do hot and foiled butts yesterday because two out of the three were spoiled and I had to wait for the store to open. BBQ was good except for the bark and lot of fat left unrendered.
 
Dave Russell said:
As I mentioned earlier, if I wasn't going to foil, I'd try the butcher paper. I'll be buying some next time I'm at SAMs or Restaurant depot.
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Our Sam's only had white butcher paper yesterday and I was looking for red. May be exactly the same, but the big guys I talked to used red so I'll trust there is a difference. Ordered mine from POS Papers. I also have some parchment to try. I can get good bark with foil, but I'm hoping the paper eliminates a step.
 
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